Noam Chomsky:
Foreign-Policy Critic Speaks at West Point

ALICE GOMSTYN / The Journal News
21apr2006

WEST POINT — The U.S. Military Academy at West Point was host last night to
one of the world's foremost critics of American foreign policy.

Noam Chomsky, the Institute Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke at the academy as part of its
Distinguished Lecture Series.

More than 500 people attended the lecture, most of them cadets who could
someday serve in the Iraq war.

Last night, they heard the gray-haired scholar explain that, in his view,
that the war in Iraq is unjust.

Chomsky, who spoke on the issue in response to a question from a cadet, said
that while the war could be called preventive, it was still an act of aggression
by the United States that most people in the world didn't support.

He added that Iran might legitimately have grounds for its own preventive
war.

"If preventative war is legitimate under these circumstances, it's
legitimate for everybody," he said.

Ian McDougall of Boxborough, Mass., a cadet who attended the lecture,
wouldn't say whether he agreed with Chomsky. But he did enjoy the lecture, he
said.

"Agree or disagree with the points, he's certainly very well-read,"
said McDougall, 20.

The bulk of Chomsky's remarks revolved around "Just War Theory" —
a theory, he said, that modern scholarship hasn't sufficiently explained.
Scholars who discuss the theory, he said, name wars they believe are
"just" without providing arguments to support the label.

Chomsky, who spoke for roughly a half-hour before taking questions from the
audience, also questioned which historic military acts could be considered
pre-emptive in nature. For instance, he said, before Japan's attack on Pearl
Harbor — which prompted the United States' entry into World War II — U.S.
journals were publishing reports on America preparing fighter planes that could
burn Japan's wooden cities to the ground. Should Japan's attack, he asked, then
be considered pre-emptive?

Still, he added: "Does that justify Pearl Harbor? Not in 10 million
years."

Chomsky also discussed Israel's military conflict with Lebanon, the war in
Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein's violations of human rights, and the United States'
onetime support for the former Iraqi dictator.

At the end of his presentation, the military academy's class of 2008
presented Chomsky with a framed picture of a part of the campus.

Lt. Col. Casey Neff, a staff member for the academy's commandant's office,
said he too enjoyed Chomsky's lecture.

Neff said Chomsky was at West Point to state a position and provoke debate.

The free speech of Chomsky and others, he said, "is one of the things
we're here to defend."

Should Noam Chomsky Reset His Compass?

WILLIAM HUGHES / The American Chronicle 23may2006

“Don’t tell fish stories
where the people know you.” - Mark Twain

Recently I read the book: “Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the
Post-9/II World,” (2005, Metropolitan Books),” which contains interviews by
David Barsamian with Noam Chomsky on a wide range of issues, including the Iraqi
War. I was deeply disappointed with it. Not because there wasn’t a lot of
solid analysis in it. There was. My misgivings dealt with what was left out of
the paperback. If the comedian Stephen Colbert could take on the hawkish Neocon
William Kristol and his warmongering Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
— a group which Kristol cofounded — why couldn’t the leading Guru of the
Left, also do so? In addition, Chomsky failed to mention either the repulsive
Kristol or the PNAC.

Another thing missing: In Chomsky’s book, the word, “Zionism,” only
appears once, and that is on p. 173, where he admitted that in his youth, during
his Philadelphia salad days, he was “very involved in the Zionist Movement.”
I also noticed that the enormously powerful Israeli Lobby wasn’t worth a cite
at all in this paperback. Yet, we now know, thanks to the prestigious Harvard
Study, that the Israeli Lobby, for over 40 years has exercised “unmatched
power,” which was not in the national interest, over the foreign policy of the
U.S. (1) Yet, Chomsky ignored this group completely! Why? Is this the same
Chomsky, that Barsamian solemnly tells us, “sets the compass headings and
describes the topography”? Barsamian goes on to say, “It is up to us to
navigate the terrain...He [Chomsky] has an extraordinary power to distill and
synthesize reams of information. And he misses nothing. ”Really? Misses
nothing! How can that be true if Chomsky missed that six ton elephant in the
room of American politics: the Israeli Lobby?

When asked why the U.S. invaded Iraq, Chomsky said, at p. 6, it was about “the
control of oil.” Later on in the book, Chomsky cites Chalmers Johnson’s
tome, “Sorrows of Empire,” but he doesn’t tell the readers that Johnson
believed that the Iraqi War was the result of the confluence of three special
interests: “Big Oil,” the Military Industrial Complex and the Israeli Lobby.
Now, despite everything we know about Israel’s role and the role of the
Israeli Lobby in pushing for the Iraqi War, Chomsky insisted on stating, at p.
8, “As far as Israel is concerned, Iraq has never been much of an issue. They
consider it a kind of a pushover.” If the Zionists considered Iraq a “pushover,”
then why didn’t they invade it? Isn’t this the same Israel that invaded
Lebanon, in 1982?

Although Chomsky co-wrote a book, called “Manufacturing Consent,” about
how the Establishment shapes the opinion of the masses, he didn’t think about
using that same kind of keen analysis in this book. In particular, with respect
9/11 — neither here nor in his earlier book, entitled, “9/11,” did Chomsky
touch on the powerful idea that the power brokers both cause and interpret what’s
going on in a way that supports their agenda. This leads me to wonder: Was 9/11,
too, manufactured? Did the Bush-Cheney Gang know it was coming and let it
happen? Or, was it Machiavellian plot put into play by sinister intelligence
agencies looking for a pretext to set the U.S. up to demonize Islam, attack Iraq
and turn this country into a police state? Chomsky declines to open up that kind
of necessary inquiry.

Chomsky talks a lot about “Propaganda,” but he doesn’t tell us who owns
the biggest stake in the U.S. media market. He also make a big fuss over how
corporate interests prevail over social concerns. Yet, he doesn’t inform the
readers the means by which the corporations, incluging huge multinationals,
exercise their massive control. If you search the index of this book, you will
not find any groups, for instance, such as: The Council on Foreign Relations,
the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome or the Bilderbergers. (2)

On p. 28, Chomsky admits that Israel is a “superpower,” possessing “hundreds
of nuclear weapons and massive armed forces.” Then, he cleverly puts it all
back on the U.S., labeling Israel — just “an offshore U.S. military base.”
Now, that’s interesting, too, especially when you consider that this so-called
“offshore U.S. military base” deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, on June
8, 1967, killing 34 members of its crew; bulldozed to death Olympia,WA peace
activist, Rachel Corrie, in 2003; let loose that traitor Jonathan Pollard to
steal our most sensitive military secrets; and since 1948, has extracted over
$140 billion in aid from our national treasury. If a Mafia Boss had to pay
tribute of $140 billion to someone, would he still be considered the Boss?

Jeffrey Blankfort, a gutsy critic of Chomsky’s selective moralizing,
particularly when it comes to his making excuses for Israel, said that because
the Neocons and the Israeli Lobby have “paid no price for it [the Iraqi
warmongering]...they are prepared to do the same with Iran.” (3) On Iran,
Chomsky, at p. 8, said, “But Iran is a different story. Iran is a much more
serious military and economic force. And for years Israel has been pressing the
United States to take on Iran. Iran is ‘too big’ for Israel to attack so
they want the ‘big boys’ to do it.” Now, let’s get this straight.
Israel, “a superpower,” according to Chomsky, which possesses tons of “nuclear
weapons,” (but is only as an “offshore” military base for America), wants
the U.S. to take Iran down because it’s “too big” for it to pull off. What
a stretch this one is! How about if the inverse is true? Chomsky is big on
utilizing the inverse concept in the book. Try this: Israel, the real Boss, who
has extracted $140 billion from our treasury, wants its lackey, the U.S. to do
its dirty work for it and attack Iran? What about that scenario, Chomsky?

Talking about Israel’s nuclear weapons. There was one U.S. president who
dared to oppose its nuclear weapon schemes. His name was John Fitzgerald
Kennedy. We all know what happened to him in Dallas, Texas. In fact, the author
Stephen Green wrote: “Perhaps the most significant development in 1963 for the
Israeli nuclear weapons program... occurred on November 22 on a plane flying
from Dallas to Washington, D.C. Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as the 36th
President of the United States, following the assassination of JFK. In the early
years of the Johnson Administration, the Israeli nuclear weapons program was
referred to in Washington as the ‘delicate topic.’ Lyndon Johnson’s White
House’s,” contrary to JFK’s, “saw no Dimona, [Israel’s Los Alamos],
heard no Dimona, and spoke no Dimona when the reactor went critical in early
1964.” Green also emphasized that under the reign of LBJ, a rabid Zionist
partisan, U.S. military aid to Israel also dramatically increased, reaching by
then unprecedented levels of freebees, and that even more importantly, as
corroborated by the scholarly Harvard Study, “Israel steadily began to act in
ways that ignored U.S. national security interests.” (4) Chomsky, however,
claims that Israel is merely an “offshore U.S. military base.”

Chomsky also tried to smear our martyred president, JFK, for supposedly
wanting to escalate the Vietnam War. The truth is that Kennedy wanted a
withdrawal of U.S. troops, whether military conditions allowed it or not, and
issued, on Oct. 11, 1963, “NSAM 263” to that effect. Johnson, with strong
ties to the Military Industrial Complex, immediately reversed that policy after
taking power. The author Peter Dale Scott, in his book, “Deep Politics and the
Death of JFK,” took Chomsky to task for his badly-flawed analysis of JFK’s
intentions, calling it, a theory that “assumes the continuity of a mind-set
that he is trying to prove.”

Another topic in this book, which I found irritating, dealt also with the
issue of Iraq. Chomsky pontificated, at p. 2, “The new doctrine was not one of
preemptive war...The U.S. will rule the world by force, and if there is any
challenge to its domination...[it] will have the right to destroy that challenge
before it becomes a threat. That’s preventive war, not preemptive war.”
Well, I’m sure that Paul Wolfowitz, the prime architect of the “Preemption
Doctrine,” along with Dick Cheney, another flaming Neocon, are going to feel
off the hook after reading that one. Chomsky said the “preventive war” idea
goes back to diplomat Dean Acheson, in 1963, which is of course, far removed
from those crafty Neocons.

In another odd twist, Chomsky quotes a poll that was taken in Iraq where
Iraqis were asked, why they thought their country was invaded. Seventy percent,
at p. 79, said, “The goal was to take over Iraq’s resources and to
reorganize the Middle East. They agreed with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz...”
Now, here was a point in the book, where Chomsky could have easily added his
critical position, and elaborated on the Neocons’, Israel’s and the Israeli
Lobby’s roles in agitating for the war against Iraq. But, the man who “misses
nothing,” let it pass by. Ask yourself, “Why?”

Despite all of the above, I’m recommending this book. It has plenty of
wisdom from the iconic Chomsky on matters, like: Regime Change; a new vision for
the future; the need for dedicated activism; the Cult of Ronald Reagan; and
rebutting the attacks on the Labor Movement, Social Security and the proposals
for a Universal Health Care System. It’s only on the subjects of Israel and
JFK, where Chomsky’s advice, at p. 32, needs to be strictly followed. He said
that one is mandated in combatting propaganda to use common sense and to ask,
“Where is the evidence?”

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘’No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse,
Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes@comcast.net

William Hughes is a Baltimore author, attorney, educator and professional
actor. He has been writing political commentaries for over 40 years. His latest
book, "Saying 'No' to the War Party," is a collection of his essays
and photographs that targeted the "Special Interests," like the
Neocons, Big Oil and the Military-Industrial Complex, that dragged the U.S. into
the Iraqi war. The book was the author's way of challenging the outrageous
conduct of the Bush-Cheney Gang, while making current history come alive for the
people. Hughes' hope is that the Anti-War Movement will serve as a catalyst to
restore the Republic before it is too late.